The Supreme Court

[B]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

[verb_to_trust]

You're not really qualified to make that statement but I get that it sounds cool.

[B]

You're not really qualified to make that statement but I get that it sounds cool.

Anyone with more than 5,000 posts on this board is, at best, mediocre at their job.

[Mickey]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

[Hatfield]

Can we also all take a moment here for some internet heresy and admit that if RBG had retired during Obama's eight years of Presidency we would not be in this fucking mess?

You’re making a big assumption about what McConnell would’ve done in that scenario.

Democrats controlled the Senate until January of 2015. She could have retired at any point during those first two years of his second term, when she was already well into her 70s. Souter had already retired in 2009. So it's not hard to see either narcissism or arrogance playing a role in the case of both RBG and Stephen Breyer staying on past a perfect retirement window.

Well sure, she could’ve retired in 2009. I think it’s a little bit of “hindsight is 20/20” to suggest that she should’ve stepped down because of the possibility of the absolute insanity that ensued Starting with Scalia’s death.

Absolutely. This isn't RBG's fault. Most prognosticators were predicting a Democrat winning in 2016 anyway. Rising Latino vote numbers, healthy economy, etc.

I was more disappointed with Sandra Day O'Connor leaving in 2006 and really surprised with Anthony Kennedy's choice to leave during Trump's era.

I think for me it just comes back to what is my general heuristic, which I've previously detailed elsewhere on this board--that the people most responsible for bad situations are the ones who had the greatest power to evade them. So yes, after the 2012 election I (naively) thought there was some sort of demographic barrier to a GOP presidency for the foreseeable future--and maybe RBG did too. But I was a dipshit 24 year old in a master's program, and she was the 79 year old Supreme Court justice who had already had cancer and could retire knowing her successor would be named by Obama no matter what. Alternately, she could continue on the court and roll the dice. She chose the latter. This doesn't excuse Mitch McConnell's fuckery with the Scalia seat which has laid the perverse groundwork for this situation, it doesn't reduce her standing as a champion of women's equality (though her judicial record is more checkered than some of her defenders want to admit), but she does bear some blame for the current conjecture by virtue of not having made a strategic decision seven years ago. Or, to put it a different way, as a progressive I fucking wish she had pulled a Kennedy, and it's kind of the height of liberal ideology to refuse to see her as culpable.

Your argument is convincing.

[B]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

[verb_to_trust]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

Presidents are not lifetime positions though. She made a mistake. It's okay to admit that. Does anyone think that "damn I fucked up" hadn't crossed her mind at some point over the last few years?

[Mickey]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

Yes but our two current Presidential candidates are succeeded by someone of their own choosing. Republicans didn't take the Senate until January of 2015. How is this so hard.

[B]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

Yes but our two current Presidential candidates are succeeded by someone of their own choosing. Republicans didn't take the Senate until January of 2015. How is this so hard.

Actually, that sentence about Presidential candidates is a bit confusing.

[B]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

Presidents are not lifetime positions though. She made a mistake. It's okay to admit that. Does anyone think that "damn I fucked up" hadn't crossed her mind at some point over the last few years?

Hindsight is 20/20. Given what we all knew up until, let's say, November 9th, 2016, there wasn't a pressing reason for her to step down when she was brilliant on the bench.

[surfndestroy]

Hindsight is 20/20. Given what we all knew up until, let's say, November 9th, 2016, there wasn't a pressing reason for her to step down when she was brilliant on the bench.

I'm asking as someone who really doesn't know but was she brilliant on the bench? Did she make compelling arguments that swayed others on the bench? Can you be brilliant if all you are doing is writing dissent opinions?

[Mickey]

Hindsight is 20/20. Given what we all knew up until, let's say, November 9th, 2016, there wasn't a pressing reason for her to step down when she was brilliant on the bench.

I'm asking as someone who really doesn't know but was she brilliant on the bench? Did she make compelling arguments that swayed others on the bench? Can you be brilliant if all you are doing is writing dissent opinions?

Good question, bolstered by the other answer, which is that "possible impending replacement by opposition president when you die" is a pretty fucking good reason, which we know to be true because it has been invoked by two other justices in the last 12 years.

[Mickey]

RBG was better at her job at 87 than anyone on this board is right now.

Even if this were true, I suspect almost no one on this board is at risk of being replaced by a political opponent when they die in office, so.

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates. By the middle of the term, there was no guarantee that the Republicans would allow anything more than a very moderate candidate through, and maybe they wouldn't let anyone through.

I wish she'd taken more steps to let a Democrat put her replacement into office as much as anyone, but she wasn't clairvoyant, and she's issued some stinging dissents in the meantime that have energized liberal voters.

Yes but our two current Presidential candidates are succeeded by someone of their own choosing. Republicans didn't take the Senate until January of 2015. How is this so hard.

Actually, that sentence about Presidential candidates is a bit confusing.

They pick their own successors! Your age matters a lot more when you don't have any say over the successor to your lifetime appointment.

[B]

Hindsight is 20/20. Given what we all knew up until, let's say, November 9th, 2016, there wasn't a pressing reason for her to step down when she was brilliant on the bench.

I'm asking as someone who really doesn't know but was she brilliant on the bench? Did she make compelling arguments that swayed others on the bench? Can you be brilliant if all you are doing is writing dissent opinions?

I suspect Roberts hasn't been sliding left on his own volition.

[Mickey]

Hindsight is 20/20. Given what we all knew up until, let's say, November 9th, 2016, there wasn't a pressing reason for her to step down when she was brilliant on the bench.

I'm asking as someone who really doesn't know but was she brilliant on the bench? Did she make compelling arguments that swayed others on the bench? Can you be brilliant if all you are doing is writing dissent opinions?

I suspect Roberts hasn't been sliding left on his own volition.

Sure, but then you're assuming that RBG was the sole cause of this, rather than that his leftward drift is more generally overdetermined and was prompted by all of the court's progressive members as well as his own shifting convictions. On top of that, you're also assuming that the role RBG plays here could not be filled by a younger liberal justice AND that Roberts siding with the liberal wing, assumed to be principally driven by RBG, is of more value than ensuring progressive control of her seat for the next 30 years.

[B]

Sure, but then you're assuming that RBG was the sole cause of this,

You're trying to turn 3D chess into a light switch.

[Jorge]

At the beginning of Obama's second term, she wasn't terribly older than our two current Presidential candidates.

So? They're both SUPER OLD and should not be running

[Mickey]

Sure, but then you're assuming that RBG was the sole cause of this,

You're trying to turn 3D chess into a light switch.

I'm going to report this post for being fucking stupid

[Mickey]

[Mickey]

Anyway at least we're getting another GirlBoss